An annuity is a financial instrument that typically starts with, or accumulates, a fund of money, and then makes recurrent payments to an annuitant or another beneficiary for some term. The term for which payments are made may be a fixed number of year, or until the end of the annuitant's life, or may be defined in some other way. Annuities have long been offered by insurance companies and other financial service institutions.
An annuity normally takes the form of a contract between the financial institution and the annuitant. This contract is generally executed on paper. Moreover, the terms of the contract are generally determined based on a paper application that is completed by the annuitant. An on-line process to apply for and obtain an annuity generally has not been available. Moreover, those on-line applications that support annuities are generally information-gathering applications, in which information is collected from the annuitant and used to fill out fields on a paper contract.